In today's #vatniksoup, I'll introduce an English comedian, actor and conspiracy theorist, Russell Brand (@rustyrockets). He's best-known for his tendency to spread conspiracy theories and for his anti-establishment (well, basically their just anti-US/UK policy) views.
1/18
Now, when I say that Brand is a conspiracy theorist, I mean it. It seems that he believes pretty much EVERY conspiracy theory out there, including The Great Reset and "Klaus Schwab taking over the world through WEF", "microchips in vaccines", "Multipolar World",...
2/18
US and CIA-led coup d'etat in Ukraine, and NATO's expansion and proxy war against Russia. Brand's a fan of David Icke, whose worldview contains inter-dimensional, shapeshifting reptilians which have hijacked the earth.
3/18
Icke suggests that various public figures belong to the Babylonian Brotherhood, a fascist group that tries to establish New World Order by suppressing freedom of speech. He also endorses a fabricated, anti-Semitic scripture called " The Protocols of the Elders of Zion".
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When discussing the Russo-Ukrainian conflict, Brand clearly has picked a side - based on Russell, the only culprits of the war are the US and the "military industrial complex". And most probably Klaus Schwab and his evil association known as the World Economic Forum...
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The basic argument is that everything is infiltrated & everyone is controlled by the "deep state",thus making any kind of democratic efforts pointless. I mean,one of the title of his videos is "Prince Harry Saga – The TRUTH About The Deep State?" (with Clare Daly by the way) 6/18
As too many actors and actresses on social media, Brand has a huge following: he has over 6 million subscribers of YouTube and over 1 million over on Rumble. On Twitter, he has a whopping 11 million followers, even though it's mainly used for channeling people...
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...to his YT and Rumble podcasts. This makes him one of the biggest outlets for conspiratorial content, and he's only surpassed by maybe Elon Musk, Joe Rogan and Donald Trump. After YouTube took down one of Brand's COVID-19 themed videos in...
8/18
..Sep, 2022, he moved to less-censored Rumble. Worried about losing that sweet, sweet YouTube money, Brand even produced an apology video but eventually took it down and said that "we made an error, in my opinion a relatively small error, and we are being ...
9/18
...penalised,and for me that looks like censorship". As an anti-capitalist, Russell evidently seems to worry about losing his main source of income, probably coming from Samsung and Coca Cola ads. You can also buy his T-shirts with cool anti-establishment statements for as..10/18
..low as 25,99 £. I mean, the man even monetized the famous 12 steps from AA/NA with his 2017 book, Recovery: Freedom from Our Addictions.
Watching Russell's podcasts is extremely exhausting, they are an endless stream of rambling about conspiracy theories and how the...
11/18
...mainstream media is quiet about them. But I did it, so you don't have to.
On his show, he's interviewed pro-Kremlin propagandists such as RT-funded Chris Hedges, Glenn Greenwald, Aaron Maté, Jimmy Dore and Seymour Hersh.
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As is tradition, they barely mention Russia, mostly talking about the corruption both in the US and in Ukraine. In Mar 2022, Brand published a video titled "You've Been LIED To About Why Ukraine War Began". The video to date has garnered 3,1 million views, and in it Brand.. 13/18
...suggests, right after he's advertised his stand-up gigs, that the Revolution of Dignity was actually a US-backed coup d'etat. He bases this information on heavily biased op-ed by Branko Marcetic. In said op-ed, Marcetic suggested that the "coup" was funded by the US...
14/18
...because John McCain shook hands with Svoboda leader Oleh Tyahnybok and Victoria Nuland gave out sandwiches to both the protestors and the police, and said "Fuck the EU" during a phone call.
Brand also appeared as a commentator on a fellow anti-capitalist Tucker ...
15/18
...Carlson's show, apparently because he believes "change is possible". The Tucker Carlson, who was so worried about the stock price going down that he had a dissenting co-worker fired. Brand was "surprised" on how many things they "actually agreed on", and for some...
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... reason this whole rant reminded me of a horseshoe.
To conclude, Brand is utilizing his career as a comedian and actor to spread wild conspiracy theories in his podcast with clickbait titles like "Why Zelensky REALLY Wants US Tanks". If there's something he's learned..
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..from the American media culture,it's that fear sells: his rants about the end of days and deep state corruption are often seasoned with ads where he sells his stand-up gig or his mugs and T-shirts with corny slogans. You know, grifting and fearmongering for a hefty profit.18/18
In today’s Vatnik Soup, I’ll introduce an American radio host and propagandist, Scott Horton (@scotthortonshow). He’s best known for blaming Russia’s genocidal war against Ukraine on the US, and for publishing a 700-page book full of Kremlin propaganda.
1/23
Most of you probably remember Scotty from this recent episode of Piers Morgan Uncensored, in which he was schooled for his revisionist propaganda by Ukrainian volunteer and activist Anastasiya Paraskevova (@UkrainianAna).
2/23
Let’s start with the obvious - Scott Horton is a hardcore Kremlin apologist who sees nothing wrong with what Putin does, but strongly condemns anything that Ukrainians do to defend themselves. For Horton,the enemy is the US and all of its allies. The way this works is that…
3/23
In today’s #vatniksoup, I’ll discuss the sad (but funny) state of Finnish vatniks. After Russia launched their full-scale invasion against Ukraine, the Finnish pro-Kremlin/conspiracy theorist scene experienced a dramatic devaluation and hasn’t been able to bounce back since.
1/20
I often get asked about the current state of the Finnish vatnik club, and there’s usually not much to report.
It’s not because these people have stopped, but because today their work has only comedic value.
So here’s the latest:
2/20
Master vatnik and traitor Johan Bäckman has relocated to Russia, and he was recently given a Russian citizenship. It’s obvious that Johan was recruited by Russia’s intelligence agencies a long time ago. He’s still producing videos on YouTube on his…
In today’s #vatniksoup, I’ll introduce a Romanian politician and conspiracy theorist, Călin Georgescu (@calin_georgescu). He’s best-known for his pro-Kremlin and conspiratorial views, running for president of Romania, and doing it by only campaigning on TikTok.
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Georgescu has a doctorate in pedology (a branch of soil science), and held various positions in Romania’s environment ministry during the 90s.
Between 1999-2012, he was a representative for Romania on the national committee of the United Nations Environment Program.
2/25
He was proposed as Romania’s prime minister in 2011, 2012 and 2016 by Romanian far-right parties, but he rose to international infamy in 2024, when he ran for president of Romania independently and obtained the most votes (22,95%) out of all candidates in the first round.
In today’s #vatniksoup, I’ll introduce a Canadian journalist and alleged Soviet/Russian spy, David Pugliese (@davidpugliese). He’s best-known for his articles about “Ukrainian Nazis”, and for allegedly being a spy for both the Soviet Union and later Russia.
1/21
Several months ago I was anonymously sent a pile of documents from the mid-80s originating from the KGB archives in Kyiv. These documents outlined a KGB recruitment into “Stuart”, or David Pugliese who “works in foreign mass media” and who is…
2/21
..“studied with the perspective of possible operative use”. Another document described “Stuart’s” contact “Ivan”, who allegedly became his handler.Some have speculated that “Ivan” is Fred Weir, a correspondent of the Christian Science Monitor.He’s lived in Moscow since 1986.
3/21
In today’s #vatniksoup, I’ll introduce an American far-right social media personality, Nicholas J. Fuentes (@NickJFuentes). He’s best-known for his white supremacist, misogynistic and antisemitic rhetoric, and for being the poster boy for the so-called incel movement.
1/17
Like so many from the white supremacist movement, Fuentes dropped out of university after his freshman year. He studied introductory international relations, which apparently made him a geopolitics expert. Nick was introduced to the white supremacist movement at an…
2/17
..early age - he took part in the infamous Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville,Virginia. In 2017, Fuentes launched his political talk show “America First”. Initially the show was aired on Trump-aligned Right Side Broadcasting Network, but it was dropped after the rally.
3/17
In today’s #vatniksoup, I’ll discuss foreign malign influence operations during the 2024 US elections. As in 2016 and 2020, these recent elections were also a target of massive disinformation and hacking campaigns originating mostly from Russia and Iran.
1/17
First of all, my opinion is that these influence operations alone didn’t affect the elections so much, that they actually made a difference.
Unlike in 2016, Trump’s win over Harris was clear and these short-term campaigns didn’t really change that much this time.
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Yet, many of these online campaigns attacked both Harris and Walz on various social media platforms. Especially Walz became a big target after his nomination, and many Russian efforts attempted to defame him.